Las Vegas Motor Speedway prepares for its first NASCAR playoff race
Playoffs? You kiddin’ me? Playoffs?
That’s right, Jim Mora. Las Vegas Motor Speedway is getting ready to host a NASCAR playoff race.
It’s not in the Sprint Cup series.
Or the second-tier Xfinity Series.
It’s in the third-tier Camping World Truck Series.
This is the first season NASCAR will determine its feeder-series champions in the manner it decides its Cup champion — with a series of bracket-style elimination races. The DC Solar 350 on Oct. 1 will be round two of the eight-race battle for the pickup truck championship.
Four drivers with ties to Las Vegas already have clinched spots in the truck series playoffs.
Johnny Sauter and Ben Kennedy (the grandson of Bill France Jr. and great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.), who both drive for Maurice Gallagher of Las Vegas, have won races and are in. Spencer Gallagher, the third GMS driver and Maurice Gallagher’s son, is on the outside in 14th place. But Spencer G. still could race his way in by winning one of the two races before the Chase or by finishing among the top eight in points.
Gallagher has 43 points to make up, which seems like a bunch. But if he can steer clear of John Wes Townley (the truck driver with whom he sort of had a fistfight in June at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis) before the playoffs start, there’s still a slim chance.
Points leader William Byron and Christopher Bell, who drive for Las Vegas lead foot Kyle Busch, also are locked in by virtue of their six combined wins (Byron has five; Bell has one.)
If the Truck series playoffs started today, these are the eight drivers who also would be trying to steer clear of Townley (18th in points) in Las Vegas: William Byron, Matt Crafton, Sauter, Kennedy, Bell, John Hunter Nemechek, Daniel Hemric, Timothy Peters.
Some of these guys probably will be Cup series stars in a couple of years. Some probably will be driving for Front Row Motorsports, running for 29th place and trying to hold off Danica Patrick.
GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED
• Those who think throwback uniforms in the stick-and-ball sports are cool shouldn’t miss this weekend’s NASCAR weekend at Darlington, where most cars will be sporting paint schemes that, like the old speedway itself, harken to another era.
Kyle Busch’s scheme will pay homage to Dale Jarrett’s 1993 Daytona 500 win; brother Kurt’s will be far less conspicuous: The hood of the No. 41 Chevy will commemorate VF1, which is not a video music channel but some sort of machine shop gizmo produced by Gene Haas, one of Kurt’s car owners.
• Competing against drivers, some more than twice his age, 16-year-old Jason Reichert of Henderson qualified on the pole and then won a Formula Ford The Series race at Buttonwillow Raceway Park near Bakersfield, California, on Sunday.
Formula Ford is the first rung on the ladder to the IndyCar series.
Young Reichert, a Las Vegas Motor Speedway karting phenom who drives for Huddy Motorsports from California, will next compete in his “hometown” race at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.
• Graham Rahal, better known as the son of former Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal or the husband of NHRA Top Fuel driver Courtney Force, held off James Hinchcliffe by .008 of a second — the closest finish in Texas Motor Speedway history — to win Saturday’s rain-delayed IndyCar race.
Hinchcliffe, who drives for Henderson’s Sam Schmidt, led six times for 188 laps. Rahal led once for about 200 yards. But Hinchcliffe can take solace in being selected to participate in ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” Season 23 while Graham and Courtney go to Applebee’s for lunch and argue about the fastest way to get there.
LAST LAP
A Lucky Dog in NASCAR is when a car and driver is waved around the pack during a caution period to restart on the lead lap.
A Lucky Dog in a Bolivian road rally, as the accompanying video illustrates, is another matter altogether.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. His motor sports notebook runs on Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski
